Apple and Sustainability

November 09, 2021

Apple faces the same challenges as every other watchmaker in moving to more sustainable manufacturing. But its sheer size, and the enormous number of watches it produces, exponentially amplify the problems it must solve. Since theApple Watch launched in 2014, its combination of versatility, clean design, and increasingly powerful suite of applications (including class-leading fitness and wellness apps) have made it the smart watch to beat. Cupertino doesnt breakout its Apple Watch sales separately from other products, but in 2019, industry analysts estimated that the company made close to 31 million Apple Watches.Thats more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry combined. The company has ambitious goals. All of Apples corporate facilities are now carbon neutral, and the companys committed itself to achieving carbon neutrality across its manufacturing and supply chains by 2030. Apple has spent billions on reducing its carbon footprint C first, in 2013, in its power-hungry data centers, and then, beginning in 2018, in all of its corporate facilities worldwide. Last year we achieved carbon neutrality for the whole company, says Lisa Jackson, Apples VP for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives. Eighty percent of that is through the actual procurement of clean energy, not through offsets. As of Apple WatchSeries 7, all metal used for Apple Watch cases is recycled, and 100% of the rare earth elements used for magnets are recycled as well. The Apple Watch is often dismissed by watch enthusiasts as disposable C in contrast to mechanical watches which, if cared for, can easily work for decades.Part of the answer for Apple is recycling and upcycling materials C everything from aluminum (Apple Watch cases), to gold (circuit boards) and rarer minerals like tantalum (used in the Taptic Engine, which provides tactile user feedback). This means the company has to get consumers on board with thinking of recycling as a normal part of the ownership cycle. Unlike a lot of other sectors, Jackson says, the electronics industry did not have, before Apple started investing in it, any real history of encouraging the recycling of old electronics in order to make new ones. What we started working on was not just the recycling that were asking consumers to do, but what happens to the material, so that they would feel a part of this idea C that were working on a day where the material from your old iPhone or your old AppleWatch can be part of whats in your new Apple Watch or iPhone. Gold in particular has proven challenging, as it is for the traditional watch industry. Here, Apple sees recycling C and a move towards more rigorous supply chain audits C as essential. Conflict minerals are a big concern, Jackson says.Weve started using salts that are recovered from 100% recycled gold waste. That doesnt entirely address the conflict problem, because its recycled material. Were continuing to invest in one of our specialty recyclers, whos now able to recover gold from our own products. One of the biggest obstacles to sustainable manufacturing for luxurySwiss watch brands, is that apart from the Swiss governments commitment to achieving climate neutrality as a national goal by 2050, theres no governmental oversight of supply chains. Jackson, who was EPA Administrator from 2009 to2013, thinks regulation is indispensable for lasting change. We cant do more than the government can, she says. Her notion is that governments C Swiss, Chinese, American, whatever C should set minimum sustainability requirements. And then its up to the brands to meet and exceed those levels. I personally think that theres a role for both, she says, and one cannot do the job of the other. Shop this story This article appears in Vol. 9 of HODINKEE Magazine, which is available in the HODINKEE shop.